Didn't watch the preview...which is probably a good thing. But I'm definitely looking forward to this being a show to get me through my WINTER SUCKS period...along with Shameless and House of Lies.

(And let this be another place for me to bitch about how bad Dexter has been this season. I'm thinking of just fast forwarding through most of it and just catching the last five minutes...looks like it's going to be totally predictable and boring).

Collateral was bird farts. Mann has had the disturbing habit of putting midgets in roles that should go to taller, more believable actors. Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Tom Cruise as a hitman is laughable.

I don't know why anyone would pass any judgement on a show like this after one episode. Fuck, I'm not even watching until I can bang out four in a row. This is going to be reeeeeeally slow developing. That is the new drama (christ, it took four episodes in Season 4 of Mad Men and BB before anyone even took a shit). Combining slow development with Milch dialogue means it will need time to get it's pieces in line.

And comparing this to John in Cincy in any way is silly. Milch is just trying to make a TV show here, like NY PD Blue, like Deadwood, etc. He went nuts with John from Cincy and proclaimed he was making an existential statement rather than just a show. Every movement was some or the other philisophical silliness.

This is TV, not the spiritual connectiveness as told through surfers and aliens and as interpretted by David Milch.

You can like it or not, no issues there, but it won't be Deadwood just like Deadwood wasn't early NY PD Blue. And it sure as hell is nowhere near what John from Cincy was in aim or goal.

(note: I didn't like John from Cincy, I'm not arguing anyone should have, just pointing out it was a very very unique project and was meant to be unique)

Personally I just wonder if Milch needs to go back on heroine like he was for the first chunk of his life.

I'm halfway through season three of BB. Just taking a little break. Love it.

Be carefully , Breaking Bad , and Game of Thrones are two shows that once you get into them, will make you want to quit your job, and leave your family just to see that next episode on Netflix/OnDemand

"I don't think they're building chemical weapons in Berea. But they might be. I can't say for sure."Chuck Klosterman

I haven't watched this but I am very shocked that it is still being compared to John from Cincy by you guys.

There is the whole not being about surfer angels thing....

I'll obviously give it a shot when I get time and fully expect to like but not love it. I'm pretty sure you guys are just getting really impatient for shit to go down, which wouldn't shock me and would fit in line with pretty much every HBO show now.

It'd definitely a slow burn but it has potential. Dustin Hoffman by himself is enough for me to keep watching; he completely commands the screen every time he's on. My main gripe is the multiple characters that are very hard to understand i.e. Nick Nolte, Escalante, and the Irish jockey woman. Even Richard Kind (agent for the jockey's?) is hard to understand with his stuttering mannerisms.

Also, it seems like there are a ton of subplots going on right now; it's very hard to follow. Milch hasn't really given much time to introducing the characters before throwing us right into their day-to-day lives, which makes it seem like nothing is going on. Most of the episodes just seem to end, which doesn't give you that "can't wait til next week" feeling that all the great shows have.

In summation, I'm sticking with it because of Dustin Hoffman and the potential, but christ, it is Rubicon slow. To compare it to John from Cinci is just jumping the gun as it seemed like even the showrunners/writers had no idea what the fuck was going on with that steaming pile of horseshit. I can definitely see Milch's vision for Luck.

Its slow going, and has some major story telling flaws, and I agree there are casting issues, but for now I am going to stick with it.

So far out of the 3 plots in the show (Hoffman's, Nick Nolte's, and the Pick6 Winners who Claim/buy a horse) I like the story of the Pick6 winners the most, Its moving at a decent clip, and mixes in more humor then the other two stories. The Nick Nolte Story looks to be picking up steam, after he finally raced that 3yr old. To me the Hoffman story is the one really dragging the show through the mud, and now they want to give lonely old Dustin a love interest (for the first few episodes I was convinced Dustin and Dennis Farina where in some sort of old man lemon party homosexual relationship.)

One thing I will say for this show is it is a incredibly realistic portrayal of the horse racing industry; which I believe may be confusing some viewers, but has kept my attention. Milch has always been a huge fan of the sport , and obviously knows the in's and out's. But the way he is going about telling the story and making this show the least bit entertaining is a mystery to me. He would have been better off making a documentary about a day in the life at the track. (speaking of which , if you want to see a good documentary on horse racing watch 'The First Saturday in May' which follows the '06 Derby trail, by far the best Horse Racing Doc I have ever seen.)

I was at Beulah Park in Cbus last Saturday , and shot the shit with a few horse players and a apprentice trainer I am friends with, the subject of the show came up and everyone had for the most part a positive review, which didn't surprise me, people where just happy to finally see a real portrayal of life at the track, not the watered down portrayal Hollywood normally spits out.

When I first heard about this show I read this quote from Milch on his love of horse racing "I hope it's a love letter. By saying that, I'm not saying it's a story coming through rose-colored glasses. To me, the track is what the river was to Mark Twain. Where you see the most life and interesting people, go there. That's what I've done."That passion he has for the sport is what got me really excited for this show, and that's why I am holding out hope.

"I don't think they're building chemical weapons in Berea. But they might be. I can't say for sure."Chuck Klosterman

Frankly the phenom is just getting worse. Last season Breaking Bad had that awesome Gus murder in the first episode and the proceeded to spend four episodes just lining up players like chess pieces with literally nothing happened. Mad Men season three actually started a popular movement against the show and now Milch is taking it to an even further extreme with his show that is just a literal demonstration of horse racing.

This is one of the reasons Homeland was so refreshing (and I didn't watch that till well after it aired), for once a TV show was a TV show again. It's also one of the great aspects of Justified.

I don't understand why great TV shows are literally living in a world where they are trying to out-slow each other to death, but it is very clearly happening.

(and sprinkle on with this show Milch is just being 100% literal with the horse racing stuff because he is pompous like that.... most critics have said this is a show where watching an episode twice actually has a huge reward, but again, just because the art is so great why does it have to be so in our faces about it, audience pleasure should still play a role)

And I still blindly maintain that a literal interpretation of horse racing cannot be as bad as a biblical demonstration in the esoteric using an effed up surfer family and an uberman to tell its story.

e0y2e3 wrote:And I still blindly maintain that a literal interpretation of horse racing cannot be as bad as a biblical demonstration in the esoteric using an effed up surfer family and an uberman to tell its story.

Amen

"I don't think they're building chemical weapons in Berea. But they might be. I can't say for sure."Chuck Klosterman